Yep, EMTALA - The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act
covers hospitals that take agreement payments, Medicare /Medicaid and the like which really means every hospital in the US, with the exception of the Shriners Hospital for crippled children and military hospitals. You have to treat the pt and you can't dump them off to a charity hospital if they can't pay. A lot of people use the ER as their primary care physician, very bad practice.
